Murder? Southern California? Hippies?Sounds like the 4 Pi movement branch of the Process Church of the Final Judgement going for more sacrificial victims. Or maybe the Kirke Order of Dog's Blood, or the First Light Brotherhood. They don't play.

I remember being about 10 years old and watching Fatal Vision with my parents, which prompted a very awkward conversation afterwards as I asked them to explain why they called him a pig, and what acid and hippies were.

skinink:"... that there are 'killer hippies' out there,.."Is that unbelievable?[0.tqn.com image 270x290]

Charlie was about as "hippie" as a modern-day Tea Partier. His goal was to incite a race war, which the blacks would eventually win, but they'd be too stupid to run things, so Charlie and the family (who would have been hiding out in underneath Death Valley) would have to take over.

McDonald is a clever and manipulative psychopath, he was high on amphetamine that night, and he has changed details of his story over the years.

He is however very persuasive, and a master of phony sincerity. That is why the suckers keep coming.

Maybe. But I'd really like to know how a guy stabs himself twice, collapsing a lung in the process, and knows he's going to survice. Also: motive?

It was a weird case. There's little doubt MacDonald did commit the crimes.

However, a credible witness at the time, who was not called by either side, did in fact tell the cops she had seen a bunch of kids matching the general description given by MacDonald in the area. The police also had in evidence a synthetic blonde hair that most likely came from a wig, again, similar to the one described by MacDonald.

Proof there really was a gang of killer hippies? Unlikely. My own guess is that MacDonald saw the kids earlier in the day, and used them as a cover. He was smart enough to acquire some wig hairs and plant them in the house. Proof he did that? No, and probably never will be. But fits with the rest of the scenario.

As to stabbing himself: MacDonald was a doctor, IIRC or a medic. He could have stabbed himself with less risk than the average person. I think that was brought up at trial, and also that he had superficial cuts, like suicide hesitation cuts, consistent with trying to stab himself and failing. It's very hard to injure yourself after all.

McDonald is a clever and manipulative psychopath, he was high on amphetamine that night, and he has changed details of his story over the years.

He is however very persuasive, and a master of phony sincerity. That is why the suckers keep coming.

Maybe. But I'd really like to know how a guy stabs himself twice, collapsing a lung in the process, and knows he's going to survice. Also: motive?

It was a weird case. There's little doubt MacDonald did commit the crimes.

However, a credible witness at the time, who was not called by either side, did in fact tell the cops she had seen a bunch of kids matching the general description given by MacDonald in the area. The police also had in evidence a synthetic blonde hair that most likely came from a wig, again, similar to the one described by MacDonald.

Proof there really was a gang of killer hippies? Unlikely. My own guess is that MacDonald saw the kids earlier in the day, and used them as a cover. He was smart enough to acquire some wig hairs and plant them in the house. Proof he did that? No, and probably never will be. But fits with the rest of the scenario.

As to stabbing himself: MacDonald was a doctor, IIRC or a medic. He could have stabbed himself with less risk than the average person. I think that was brought up at trial, and also that he had superficial cuts, like suicide hesitation cuts, consistent with trying to stab himself and failing. It's very hard to injure yourself after all.

Why is there "little doubt" he did it? Everything sounds very circumstantial. If being the only survivor of a mass murder, particularly where you were nearly one of the victims, is evidence you did it, I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

McDonald is a clever and manipulative psychopath, he was high on amphetamine that night, and he has changed details of his story over the years.

He is however very persuasive, and a master of phony sincerity. That is why the suckers keep coming.

Maybe. But I'd really like to know how a guy stabs himself twice, collapsing a lung in the process, and knows he's going to survice. Also: motive?

It was a weird case. There's little doubt MacDonald did commit the crimes.

However, a credible witness at the time, who was not called by either side, did in fact tell the cops she had seen a bunch of kids matching the general description given by MacDonald in the area. The police also had in evidence a synthetic blonde hair that most likely came from a wig, again, similar to the one described by MacDonald.

Proof there really was a gang of killer hippies? Unlikely. My own guess is that MacDonald saw the kids earlier in the day, and used them as a cover. He was smart enough to acquire some wig hairs and plant them in the house. Proof he did that? No, and probably never will be. But fits with the rest of the scenario.

As to stabbing himself: MacDonald was a doctor, IIRC or a medic. He could have stabbed himself with less risk than the average person. I think that was brought up at trial, and also that he had superficial cuts, like suicide hesitation cuts, consistent with trying to stab himself and failing. It's very hard to injure yourself after all.

Why is there "little doubt" he did it? Everything sounds very circumstantial. If being the only survivor of a mass murder, particularly where you were nearly one of the victims, is evidence you did it, I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Read the book. It's too complicated to go over here. But some of the key points included: His blood in the sink and on the mirror in the bathroom, although he said he had been stabbed in the living room and the only other places he'd been were his kids' rooms; cut marks on his clothing that lined up with the stab wound on one of his daughter, indicating his clothes had been in contact with her body when the stabs were made, although he said that had not happened; other blood evidence that put him in rooms where he said he had not been.

I mean, sure, that's "circumstantial" in the sense that there might be other, more tortured explanations, which MacDonald offered at his trial; but trials use Occam's Razor in general and if it's either "He stabbed them" or "somehow his shirt got laid on top of his daughter and then the hippies stabbed her and then he went back, put the shirt on, and then got blood on himself", USUALLY you go with the idea that he did, in fact, stab her all by himself.

There can never be perfect evidence in a situation where nobody else saw what happened except the dead people and the alleged killer--if there was an eyewitness, there wouldn't be any doubt, but how many murder victims get that lucky?

What if the killer hippies were outer space killer hippies, you know, killer hippies from outer space, and the acid they were taking was space acid, which, you know, is a totally different kind of acid, and uh, uh..., well. uh, maybe that would account for some of the discrepancies...

"He is almost the definition of an unlikely murder suspect," said Toobin. "Princeton graduate, medical doctor, Green Beret, these are the kinds of credentials we associate with people at the top of the heap in this country, not convicted murderers."

There's the motive for opening this up again: "'Nice' people must be vindicated!"

If he would have admitted to being a speed freak, as he did in his first confession, he'd be free by now. The speed he was over medicating on caused psychosis and unworldly visions. It was banned and taken off the market a few years after the murder. It would have been easy to tie it to what he did to his family, and he might have gotten some bucks out of the deal. Joe McGinniss actually did Jeffery a favor by writing about the unused confession. Jeffery might have victim issues...

Acid is groovy, I agree, but Errol Morris had better watch out if he proves this guy innocent, cause that guy he made The Thin Blue Line about ended up suing Morris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Dale_Adams#Lawsuit_over_the_story

Hector Remarkable:What if the killer hippies were outer space killer hippies, you know, killer hippies from outer space, and the acid they were taking was space acid, which, you know, is a totally different kind of acid, and uh, uh..., well. uh, maybe that would account for some of the discrepancies...

I know we call ourselves star children, but all of us were born on earth. In this lifetime anyway.